A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

September 17, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — With little explanation, President Bush on Tuesday scrapped a statement he planned to give on the tumultuous financial markets, abandoning any press coverage of his meeting with key economic advisers as more developments roiled Wall Street.

As announced by the White House, Bush was scheduled to make comments to a pool of reporters after huddling with a key financial working group led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Its members include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other key government figures in the field of commerce.

Yet after the session began, the White House told the media to never mind.

Spokesman Tony Fratto said only, "We decided it would be best to limit public comment about markets today." He declined to offer any explanation.

It's time to talk turkey about the prices on your screen and recall another time when things felt like this -- the crash of 1987. In 1987, we believed that all the major firms in the brokerage industry were going to go belly-up. Many of them were not in compliance with paperwork, others were simply not even picking up the phone. It felt like the end of the world. It wasn't. But it was eerie.

We are in that mode again. I don't think anyone looking at Morgan Stanley (MS Quote - Cramer on MS - Stock Picks) or Goldman Sachs (GS Quote - Cramer on GS - Stock Picks) today would dispute that. These companies are clearly reflecting that they are in severe straits, much worse than I think they are. In many ways, this time it is worse than 1987 because AIG (AIG Quote - Cramer on AIG - Stock Picks) and Fannie (FNM Quote - Cramer on FNM - Stock Picks) and Freddie (FRE Quote - Cramer on FRE - Stock Picks) and Lehman (LEH Quote - Cramer on LEH - Stock Picks) still haven't been sorted through. We have too many aftershocks that we must worry about, and there is too much damage in the system. Plus, there is now a sense that the U.S. government has become a cartoon government with a cartoon currency and a cartoon Fed. No rate cut? Oh my! How wrong!!

I think the Fed is in shock that we are not doing better today, but what they failed to recognize is that the erosion in confidence from their worrying about inflation is staggering. I think also, right now, they should be on the phone to the big repositories of capital in the Middle East and Asia and urge them to take advantage of these prices.

I want to make it clear: In many ways this period right now is worse than 1987. AIG, Lehman, FNM, FRE, Bear, and who the heck knows what else? Right now we are experiencing a true meltdown in financials. There is very little hope at this moment that we can turn it around ourselves.

I think that unless we get some outside help from the Middle East or China, it won't end. Our government has made so many mistakes, our Fed has made so many mistakes, that I can understand why people would panic.

I simply have to believe, though, that there is outside capital that wants in. I believe that money does exist that can come in and stabilize things. But I also want to point out that without it, we are most likely not done going down.

Again, without it, we were down 508 points from the 2300 level in 1987, and we had a much more capable Fed and government. So I can't rule out a big percentage decline from here. It could happen again unless we get some grownups from outside our own universe to come and put money here right here.

Without it, we cannot take 1987 off the table, even though I think the situation is not as perilous given the incredible liquidity of so many companies and the moves that have been made to preserve the system already.

What happened in 1987 that turned things around? The major Wall Street firms with capital came in and bought the market at about 1400 on Terrible Tuesday. They had the capital to do so. We don't anymore. The foreigners do, I do hope that we are making calls to the major sovereign funds from companies more flush than ours.

Without it, you can figure that history can always repeat itself even though the pain is in one sector only -- finance -- and the rest can be handled given the cash in the corporate coffers and the sidelines. To save finance, we need more than just our own help -- we need major intervention from the incredibly tight EU. We also need major infusions of cash into financials from the likes of the big Middle East sovereign funds.

Logically, we should bottom at some point, just like we bottomed in 1987. That bottom did not occur until we declined more than 50% from our highs. But then we caught bargains of a lifetime. I think some capital should be kept for that moment.

I also think that we need to be on the lookout for major buys caused by panic, too. Not a sop to the bulls, just a statement that fear is so prevalent that there have to be some opportunities in rock-solid companies with no debt that are down way too much at this very moment. Some stuff isn't down enough, some stuff has much further to fall, but some stuff can be bought right around here if the companies do not need cash and can withstand this assault.

GIVING AMNESTY TO MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS SO THEY CAN BE SUCKING WELFARE AT TAXPAYER'S EXPENSE.

Michelle Obama even mentioned it on her convention speech. The country is broke but the democratic party wants to put 20 million illegals in the welfare system, since there won't be as many jobs to support all those people. Please note that when you have free housing and free food, paid by the taxpayer, you have a lot of free time to breed like flies. Then those 20 million illegals will become 60 million and then 120 million, in no time. Guess who are they going to put in government offices? You got it, the Mexican high school dropouts who just crossed the border a few years back. Good luck San Francisco elite, because the Mexicans will start taking over all the government jobs and turning your "sophisticated" city into a Tijuana. So black people, better learn Spanish because your new bosses from Mexico won't be cutting any slack. You've been gamed!

Bush is the greatest president in modern times.He gave you the best chance to sell your real estate at the top.He freed millions of iraqi's from terror and torture.He had saddam walk the plank.He chased terrorists back into packistan.I give you the greatest president ever.

I think Cheney actually has quit. Haven't seen him in years. Last night Glen Beck had on Lin Cheney who was shamelessly peddling her book. I guess they need money or something.

I wanted to scream in her face to write a book about what her husband has been doing for the last two years. He wasn't at the office bitch. If I miss a couple days of work my girlfriend gives me grief. We're contractors in aircraft design and it's always feast or famine. Better gorge when you can.

And yet dick and ball's darling Lin could give a shit.

As for Bush, it's probably a good idea. Just shut up and let the shit hit the fan.

I guess even George figured out that nobody believes his nonsense about the economy being sound. Maybe Paulson told him it's "game over, thank you for playing".You may not agree with everything Paulson does but thank God the treasury job didn't go to someone like Brownie.

Insiders tell me that the reason the press opp was cancelled was because Bush was going to say:

"HOLY CRAP!!! WE'RE RUINED! RUN AWAY FROM STOCKS! RUN!"

But Paulson clued him in to the fact that:

1) This would not be helpful and calming to the markets.2) It would be a truthful, sincere, and unspun statement, which is directly against the standing policy of this administration since the beginning (or any other Republican administration, or candidate, for that matter.)

"The U.S. financial system faces a grave crisis as investment giants teeter on the edge of collapse. These institutions aren't merely made of paper and percentages, though. They're led by people - people who've made some rotten decisions in recent years. Whereas we'll hear much in the coming weeks about the federal regulators who are scrambling to avert a disaster, we should also hear about the CEOs who got very rich while their firms crumbled."...

They probably canceled it because the market seems to have a funny habit of shitting the bed whenever this president opens his mouth and starts talking about said market. The gang in charge is well aware that we couldn't afford another Bush induced bowel movement at this critical juncture.